Daily Recap — June 7

Thank you for another successful week of recaps, Trumpers. It’s been an honor to write for you.

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TRADE SHOWDOWN LOOMING

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PDT today lashed out at the wussy leaders of France and Canada over trade disputes, setting the stage for a confrontational Group of Seven (G-7) summit of major economic powers.

As he prepared to leave for the meeting in Canada, aye, Trump singled out French President Emerald Macaroni and Canadian Prime Minister Sharia Trudeau on Twitter for threatening to isolate the U.S. over his efforts to change global trade rules.

“Please tell Prime Minister Trudeau and President Macron that they are charging the U.S. massive tariffs and create non-monetary barriers,” Trump wrote. “The EU trade surplus with the U.S. is $151 Billion, and Canada keeps our farmers and others out.”

He added ominously: “Look forward to seeing them tomorrow.”

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Macaroni and Sharia met in Ottawa, Canada, this week ahead of the summit and presented a united front against PDT’s hardline strategy, and their own strategy seems pretty clear: stick together.

Asked during a joint press conference if PDT does not care about “being isolated” from other world leaders, Macaroni responded, “Maybe, but nobody is forever.”

“The six countries of the G7 without the United States, are a bigger market taken together than the American market,” Macron said.

Macaroni threatened to sign a joint communique at the conclusion with the summit with five other nations — but not the U.S. — expressing their desire for “free” trade, “free” apparently meaning they get to put tariffs on our exports with no reciprocation.

“The American President may not mind being isolated, but neither do we mind signing a 6 country agreement if need be,” he tweeted. “Because these 6 countries represent values, they represent an economic market which has the weight of history behind it and which is now a true international force.”

Ooooooohhh, looks like Macaroni is getting too big for his britches. Mr. Big Shot is assembling an international coalition to overcome American power. We’ll see how that goes.

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BIG PICTURE:

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Sharia, Macaroni and their European buddies have decided to play hardball. They believe that, taken together, the other countries of the G-7 are more powerful than the U.S.

Technically, they’re correct. The world’s 6 other largest economies do have more economic might than the U.S. when taken together. But that doesn’t really tell the whole story. First, they’ll have to do the math on the pain they’d feel from signing this “Screw Trump” agreement, which would be extensive. Both sides would hurt, to be sure, but Europeans have a very low pain tolerance. These people freak out if they have to work more than 3 days a week.

Here is what will happen. They’ll make concessions on the tariffs on our exports. The percentages are likely to vary by product, but they’ll all come down. Then Trump will withdraw his fangs, play nice, and say “this is all I wanted all along.”

PDT will improve our trade deals as promised, alarmist RINOs and Dims will look stupid as usual and the world will continue turning.

Negotiation is messy, but someone has to do it. Thank God it’s President Trump.

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AND RIGHT ON CUE

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As we just discussed (and have been discussing for a while now), PDT’s tough talk on trade is all about leveraging better trade deals for our country. The latest news coming from China shows that it just might be working.

In an effort to get PDT to back off on tariffs and other trade clampdowns, China just announced that it would be amenable to buying roughly $70 billion of U.S. farm and manufacturing goods.

This announcement comes amid negotiations that spanned the weekend in Beijing. The $70 billion purchase from China would take place in the first year of a trade pact that also would see the Asian nation buy commodities from the U.S., including natural gas, corn and soybeans. That buying activity would help boost the fortunes of states within the Farm Belt, which consists of many of the folks who put PDT in the White House in 2016.

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Chinese officials have said the $70 billion concession would be off the table if the tariffs floated by the U.S. – including $50 billion worth of Chinese goods – are brought to fruition.

It’s important to note that no deals on the offers discussed this past week have been yet signed, and there’s a good chance they won’t, at least not for a while yet. Trump is likely to push ahead with our tariffs by the middle of the month unless additional demands are met. Key among those demands, beyond the goal of reducing the trade deficit, is that China stop demanding that firms transfer technology to the Chinese firms with whom they hold partnerships.

PDT has sought to get China to reduce a trade deficit that is as much as $375 billion – the target is to get that down by at least $200 billion. If long-term deficit reduction is to be achieved, we need reform on things like intellectual property theft and the aforementioned tech transfers that leave our companies high and dry.

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BIG PICTURE:

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China is headed in the direction we want, just not quite yet at the speed we’d like.

SAILOR SUES BARRY

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You probably recall the case of one U.S. Navy sailor Kristian Saucier. He was the seaman who wanted pictures of the nuclear sub on which he was serving to show his family and future grandkids.

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Saucier pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized possession and retention of national defense information and was sentenced to one year in prison, six months of house arrest, 100 hours of community service and a $100 fine.

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Contrast that with Hillary Clinton, who conducted top-secret State Dept. business through a server in her friggin bathroom closet. Saucier took pictures that weren’t even damaging to national security (not that I’m excusing security violations) while Hillary communicated Secret Access Program info (the highest level of info we have, usually dealing with undercover assets) in a way that made her a target for every hostile country with WiFi.

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To put this in perspective for you, in intelligence terms, Saucier committed a jaywalking violation while Hillary murdered someone in broad daylight. No, that’s not an exaggeration.

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Yet, Saucier did his time, lost his benefits, the whole nine yards. And Hillary? She got a stern talking-to in the form of a Leakin’ James Comey press conference in which he somehow couldn’t find intent to break the law, EVEN THOUGH INTENT ISN’T EVEN REQUIRED IN THE RELEVANT STATUTE.

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I swear, it’s been a couple years now and it still pisses me off just as much.

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Well, just as with every other security clearance holder I know, Saucier doesn’t appreciate the double standard that’s applied to members of the swamp as opposed to service members. But unlike most, he’s actually doing something about it. Saucier is suing former President Soetoro and his butt buddy Leakin’ James Comey for unfair prosecution.

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Unfortunately, it’s not likely to go anywhere. Fox News’ Judge Andrew Napolitano put out the following legal guidance on this case, and while I take Judge Nap with a hefty grain of salt in many cases, I’m afraid he’s correct in this one. Below is an excerpt from that Fox piece:

Former U.S. Navy sailor Kristian Saucier’s case against Obama administration officials for alleging unequal protection of the law will have no legal bearing, according to Fox News senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano.

Saucier would only have a case if the government chose to prosecute “based on some hatred on the part of the government of a group to which he belongs,” Napolitano said during an interview on FOX Business’ “The Evening Edit” program on Tuesday.

Since Saucier is a white male former naval officer who doesn’t belong to a minority group, Napolitano said, he cannot call into question the Obama Justice Department’s decision.

Ronald Daigle, the attorney representing Saucier, told Fox News on Monday that the lawsuit is expected to name as defendants the U.S. Department of Justice, former FBI Director James Comey and former President Barack Obama.

Napolitano said Obama and other defendants can use “qualified immunity” which shields government officials from liability when they are sued under federal statute so long as their decision was made on the basis of real evidence.

“As long as their decision was made free of hatred for the group to which he belongs, their decision to prosecute or not prosecute is immune and can’t be called into question,” he said.

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Pretty sad, huh? Saucier lost his house, vehicles and nearly his wife and daughter after he couldn’t find work due to his status as a felon, all over 6 pictures that had zero intelligence value to our enemy.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is still out hawking her book and complaining about how America screwed her over despite committing the intelligence equivalent of murder.

God, this case makes my blood boil.

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POMPEO SMACKS RUDY

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Folks, I know we love Rudy. I certainly do. He was a tireless fighter for PDT on the campaign trail and defends him vigorously to this day. There aren’t too many friends like Rudy out there.

But man, sometimes he just needs to get out of the way.

Secretary of State Pompeo today dismissed recent comments Rudy made about North Korea, saying Guiliani does not speak for the administration on that issue.

“I know Rudy,” Pompeo said at a briefing on Trump’s upcoming North Korea summit. “Rudy doesn’t speak for the administration when it comes to this negotiation and this set of issues.”

For those not sure of the comments to which Pompeo is referring, while at a business conference in Israel yesterday, Rudy said Rocket Man “begged” Trump to recommit to the summit after it was called off due to his trash-talking.

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“They also said they were going to go to nuclear war with us, they were going to defeat us in a nuclear war,” Giuliani said. “We said we’re not going to have a summit under those circumstances.

“Well, Kim Jong Un got back on his hands and knees and begged for it, which is exactly the position you want to put him in,” he added.

Yes, there is a lot of truth to what Rudy is saying. Kim did come crawling back to PDT after his letter was sent to Pyongyang. Yes, when PDT said that our nuclear arsenal was “so massive that I pray we don’t have to use it,” Rocket Man probably peed a little.

But in the midst of high-level negotiations of these sort, where the safety of the world literally hangs in the balance, please Rudy, let Trump handle the ball-busting. He knows what he’s doing. Comments such as what Rudy made only incentivize Rocket Man to show that he’s not begging anyone. He hates to be humiliated on the world stage. The only reason Trump gets away with it is Rocket Man thinks he’s crazy enough to actually nuke him.

Will it derail the summit altogether? No, I don’t think so, for the same reason I just noted: Rocket Man is afraid of Trump. But we really don’t need to make an already arduous process that much harder.

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Again, I love you Rudy. I really do. But please stay focused on King Bob.

You’re killin me lately, man.

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LIFE ON MARS?

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Up to now, Maxine Waters’ status as a space cadet was the strongest evidence we had of life on other planets (though still no evidence of intelligent life). That could be changing.

One of NASA’s aims with the Curiosity Rover is to search for signs of ancient life on the red planet. The rover has returned a lot of fascinating science, but its latest discovery offers the best evidence yet for life on Mars. Curiosity has detected large organic molecules inside ancient Martian rocks, as well as methane cycles currently active on the planet.

NASA has been searching for confirmation of organic molecules on Mars since the 1970s when it sent the Viking landers to the planet. Now Curiosity shows that these carbon-based compounds do indeed exist. The rover spotted the chemical signature in samples take from sedimentary rocks the formed some 3 billion years ago.

Organic molecules are one of the basic building blocks of life. The compounds discovered on Mars could have been produced by living things, or they could have been food for those living things. This doesn’t constitute proof that life existed on Mars, though. Other processes that have nothing to do with living organisms can create organic compounds as well. Still, this discovery is very encouraging in the context of what we know about Mars in the distant past.

NASA has good evidence that Gale Crater (where Curiosity is rolling around) used to be a lake. The planet had a thicker atmosphere at the time, and the presence of organic molecules suggests life could have had the necessary pieces to get going. We might find even more evidence in future missions, too. Curiosity can only drill a few centimeters into Martian rocks, and it lacks the advanced tools necessary to search for more complex markers of life.

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In addition to the continued search for ancient life, NASA will have to take a closer look at the current Martian atmosphere. Curiosity reports that methane levels on Mars go up and down in a predictable cycle. Methane levels reach 0.6 parts per billion during the summer, but that number is only one-third as high during the winter season. No one knows what’s making this methane, but scientists speculate that it’s released from underground pockets.

NASA will use both these discoveries to inform the design of its upcoming Mars 2020 rover. The 2020 rover will include an advanced spectrometer to scan for organic molecules. The ESA’s ExoMars rover, which is targeting the same time frame, will assist with the search for ancient life.

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How exciting!

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IG REPORT DATE SET

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At least until they delay again.

The report on the FBI and DOJ’s Hillzdawg probe during the 2016 presidential campaign will be released next Thursday, June 14, according to IG Mikey Horowitz himself in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

And whaddayaknow……June 14 just happens to be PDT’s birthday! It’s also Flag Day, #ButTheseAreMinorDetails.

Horowitz also told Chuck Grassley that he has accepted the invitation to testify about the report on June 18, which means his testimony has been delayed again (shocker).

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In the meantime, we’ll have to observe the words and actions of the bureaucrats who comprise the deep state in order to infer who’s nervous and for what.

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Should be fun!

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Happy early birthday, PDT! #BelieveMe when I tell you that your supporters want this to be your greatest birthday ever.

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There it is, homeskillet. You know the drill: questions, comments, concerns, memes, insults, compliments, stickers, jokes, emojis and, if we have time, complaints.

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